Cowboys use this tactic when they have to remove a sick animal or one that needs to be branded from the herd. In college, we also called it cutting the herd, but it had more to do with dating and luring that one girl away from her pack in order to communicate with her without the distraction (or influences) of her girlfriends. Crude as it may sound, it was often necessary in the courtship process.  I successfully cut my wife from the herd 15+ years ago and it seems to have worked out for both of us (yet, I can only speak for myself I guess).  The process of cutting the herd goes beyond sick cattle or the need to […]

We were hell on footballs when I was a kid.  We’d play with them for hours and did our best to keep the dog from puncturing them. Eventually she would get a hold of the ball or we’d do something to put a hole in one of them and we were forced to beg my folks for the money to buy a new one. My dad would concede, since having a football would keep us outside and that is where kids belonged during most of the hours of the day.  When we got a new football, it was a tradition to play with it with the cardboard box still on.  We would do this till the box fell off and […]